The school nurse

Objective & content

This is a short everyday conversation, about one minute long, to listen to and then answer: Ruby, 12, visits the school nurse, Mrs Lewis, with her temperature, a phone number said digit by digit and a time to catch. The script is not shown in the app: pupils only listen, and a picture of an empty school nurse's room shows during the opening sound, then fades. The language is the language of looking after someone: questions to ask how someone is ("How do you feel now?"), imperatives, I feel + adjective, and requests with can, with the words headache, temperature, tired, feel and glass. In the app, pupils answer 18 questions: listening (gist, then detail), words and useful phrases. The script is for the teacher, as a transcript for an optional follow-up in class.

Pedagogical guide

The episode is made for pupils to do on their own: in class on a tablet or in the computer room, or at home. Each pupil listens with headphones, as many times as they need, and answers the 18 questions in order. The listening questions come first, gist then detail, so the first listen is for the general idea (who is ill, what is wrong, who the nurse phones and whether Ruby goes home) and the next ones are for the details (what is wrong, the phone number and who can come). Pupils pause and replay the audio themselves; the picture fades so they listen instead of looking. There is no script and no translation on screen: a pupil who doesn't know a word looks it up in a dictionary. The teacher's part is short: set the task, look at the results, and, if there is time, run the short follow-up in class below. The lesson plan gives a whole-class version for a teacher who prefers to play the episode to the class.

Suggested procedure

For the pupil (about 15 minutes):

1. Listen once, without stopping, for the general idea: who is ill, what is wrong, who the nurse phones and whether Ruby goes home.
2. Answer the first listening questions.
3. Listen again, and pause when you need to. On a piece of paper, write down what is wrong, the phone number and who can come.
4. Answer the detail questions, then the words and the useful phrases.
5. For each wrong answer, listen to that part again and find what you missed.

Back in class (optional, about 10 minutes):

1. Look at the questions most pupils got wrong, and play those lines again together.
2. Hand out the script as a transcript: pupils find the line for each answer.
3. Role-play: in pairs, with a new problem, a new number and a new time.

Materials & prerequisites

• The episode in the app (the audio, the scene picture and the 18 questions), on one device per pupil, with headphones.
• A piece of paper for notes.
• For the follow-up in class only: the script, printed as a transcript, one copy per pair.
• Prerequisites: numbers from 0 to 9 said one by one, and words for parts of the body.